My guess is most traffic will stay at the current TLDs
I think that's right. The mitigating factor here is that Prometheus' observation:
Actually, doesn't the existence of TLDs seem arbitrary, too? Why end every URL with .SomeString?
...is a pretty good description of the de facto situation today. Basically, there is only one important TLD - .com - and both surfers and browsers are happy to pretend that it's unnecessary. If you own a domain with any other TLD, it requires people to remember a meaningless suffix, and/or the placement of a meaningless dot inside your name. ("deli.cious? del.ic.ious? delic.io.us? What the hell was that, again?") The result is marketing poison, and nobody recommends it.
This ICANN decision is bad, but I think the main effect will be to further amplify the value of .com domains (the ones which don't require you to remember a now entirely arbitrary TLD). And/or it will further cement Google's lock on the first five seconds of any web-surfing expedition (as if they needed it).
The only danger is that we will wake up one day and discover that typing "zyzygy" into a browser redirects you somewhere other than zyzygy.com. If that happens than we'll know that ICANN has succeeded in setting off the biggest land-grab stampede in the history of the world, the cybersquatters will die of ecstacy, and I will want to kick something.
Remember one of the common ways of getting anywhere is to type www.google.com in the msn homepage that comes up. And then you type www.myspace.com into the google search box...
I think that's right. The mitigating factor here is that Prometheus' observation:
Actually, doesn't the existence of TLDs seem arbitrary, too? Why end every URL with .SomeString?
...is a pretty good description of the de facto situation today. Basically, there is only one important TLD - .com - and both surfers and browsers are happy to pretend that it's unnecessary. If you own a domain with any other TLD, it requires people to remember a meaningless suffix, and/or the placement of a meaningless dot inside your name. ("deli.cious? del.ic.ious? delic.io.us? What the hell was that, again?") The result is marketing poison, and nobody recommends it.
This ICANN decision is bad, but I think the main effect will be to further amplify the value of .com domains (the ones which don't require you to remember a now entirely arbitrary TLD). And/or it will further cement Google's lock on the first five seconds of any web-surfing expedition (as if they needed it).
The only danger is that we will wake up one day and discover that typing "zyzygy" into a browser redirects you somewhere other than zyzygy.com. If that happens than we'll know that ICANN has succeeded in setting off the biggest land-grab stampede in the history of the world, the cybersquatters will die of ecstacy, and I will want to kick something.